Best Locations for Sighting Cryptids

From Loch Ness to the Congo, there are plenty of places left to seek out your very own primeval predator. From Lonely Planet's Best in Travel 2009.

Scotland
Cryptozoology's poster monster, Nessie is the long-necked lake beast lurking in Loch Ness. Loch Ness' massive volume — the lake is 37km long, with a maximum depth of 230m — leaves lots of hiding space for an elusive cryptid. All the better for Nessie's neighbours, profiting from the multimillion-pound industry she has spawned. The big question: could she be a plesiosaur, the otherwise extinct aquatic reptile?

African Congo Basin
The Likouala swamp is hot, humid and thick with forests and wetlands. Where better for reptilian survivors of the Jurassic to remain undocumented? So it is with the mokele-mbembe, a Lingala name that refers to hypothetical but oft-reported prehistoric wildlife (such as emela-ntouka, mbielu-mbielu-mbielu and nguma-monene) all fitting the description of a sauropod dinosaur — elephant-sized, with a long neck and long tail.

Amazon rainforest
The planet's most likely cache of undetected large mammals is the Amazon rainforest. Hidden therein could be countless beasts, including the tapire-iauara, or onça d'água (water jaguar). Cow-sized and donkey-legged, it is said to have the face of a jaguar with drooping ears. The remote swamps it inhabits suit its semi-aquatic needs and carnivorous nature, and keep it away from the mapinguari, a legendary sloth-like Big Foot of the Amazon, and the minhocão, a scaly, black giant-worm bugaboo up to 20m long.

Pacific Northwest, North America
Sasquatch, from sesquac, a Coast Salish Indian word meaning "wild man", is just one of many Native American terms to describe our favourite, but unverified, large, hairy, bipedal primate — Big Foot. This secretive, nocturnal cryptid who refuses to sit for a portrait has seriously challenged both sceptics and proponents. Although believed to be present all across North America, its frequent appearances in the extensive forests of Washington state and British Columbia draw the curious from around the globe.

East Africa
The Nandi people of forested western Kenya have a beast they call kerit, aka the Nandi bear. As large as a lion, like a hyena on steroids, with high and broad front shoulders, thick dark-brown fur and the gait and face of a bear, it is said to be ferocious, and craves human blood. Having eluded capture through centuries of sightings, it must also be smart; after all, according to the Nandi, its favourite food is brains.

From Lonely Planet's Best in Travel 2009 — 850 trends, destinations, journeys & experiences for the year ahead.

The Himalayas
Although tamed by Tintin, Scooby-Doo and Hermey the Elf (from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer), the "real" abominable snowman has yet to be substantiated. With many sightings registered and footprints photographed, the yeti appears to be alive and well, though still only on the desolate snowbound slopes of the high Himalayas. If chased by a yeti, why not turn your pet nyalmo (a 5m-tall, four-toed primate-like Himalayan cryptid) on him, or summon up a Tibetan mystical tulpa energy being?

Mongolia
Something elongated, reddish and deadly may lurk beneath the sunbaked rocky plain of the southern Gobi Desert. Known to the local Mongolian tribesmen as the allghoi khorkhoi ("intestine worm"; it looks like living cow entrails), cryptozoologists call it the Mongolian death worm. The thick-bodied invertebrate is said to emerge after rain in June and July, spitting lethal acid from its front end and emitting an immobilising electric charge from its tail.

Indonesia
Sleepless nights may be routine for children of Seram Island in the Moluccas archipelago of eastern Indonesia. Folklore and several contemporary run-ins tell of nocturnal winged monkeys that abduct and feed on young flesh. The fearsome orang-bati (winged men) supposedly dwell in a cave network deep within Mt Kairatu, a dormant volcano. Its human-like torso, complete with blood-red skin, bat wings and a long tail, is covered with short black fur; its shrill wail is naked terror.

Australia
Australia is known for its unusual fauna of monotremes (egg-laying mammals) and marsupials (pouched mammals) with uncommon names (quoll, quokka, numbat), and also for the unfortunate extinction of the thylacine (Tasmanian tiger). Are there really none left? Maybe not. Maybe too there's still a thylacoleo (Queensland tiger), conjectured to be the marsupial equivalent of a predatory feline. Or the fabled bunyip — could there be a surviving prehistoric diprotodon?

Oceans of the World
What's actually out there in the liquid unknown covering 71 percent of the planet's surface and accounting for 80 percent of living things? Lots, including the oft-spied cadborosaurus sea serpent, the most famous of which is Caddy of British Columbia; or the giant monsters of the deep such as Kraken and Lusca (octopus-like sea beasts); megalodon (shark); biblical leviathan (whale); or any of the globsters (unidentifiable organic mass washed up on a beach).

This is an edited extract from Lonely Planet's Best in Travel 2009 Lonely Planet Publications, 2008.

oooh, the oceans are definately the final frontier.

I bet there are many secrets undiscovered down in the deep, hidden away from human eyes. Not just creatures, ancient lands too. No way I go anywhere near the ocean ... The Kraken has always terrified me ( ), and besides someone is getting eaten by a shark every second week around here as of late. I''ll stay on land as evolution intended, thank you very much.

PS. That Mongolian "intestine worm" sounds horrendous ...

Lol yes, I have to say the sharks are a bit of a worry. Where I live there is a ginormous salt water crocodile on the loose that visits the beaches...that's certainly stopped me taking the kids to the beach!

Apart from the physical domains here on Earth, I think the next great frontier is between space - the other dimensions. I've seen it for myself. Maybe these cryptids aren't all left-over stone age anomalies. Some would have to be cross-dimensional visitors, wouldn't you think? My daughter has been playing dolls in a group of trees and she told me the other day that she sees flashes of yellow/white light around her that she thinks are fairies or nature beings. My oldest son reports that he too has had similar experiences in another group of trees where he built a cubby house. I've seen these yellow energies and they are indeed fairies. Sometimes i think we are so involved in the physical world that we fail to notice when something from another dimension pops in. I find it funny to think that there people who spend hours stalking Big Foot or the Loch Ness Monster while all around them undetected the fairies or nature spirits play undetected.

Quote :

I find it funny to think that there people who spend hours stalking Big Foot or the Loch Ness Monster while all around them undetected the fairies or nature spirits play undetected.

They have what I call 'tunnel vision'. Such is the nature of the beast!

I think most of them are definately cross-dimensional visitors. Something similiar to where dimensions collide with our reality and make a 'blip' in the system. If that makes any sense.

I'm pretty certain that there is some kind of ocean monster (or primeval predator) that lives near my parents' house, or at least it goes near a road that runs to the road their house is on. I used to walk home from a job nearby when it was dark, and many nights I went on night walks for fun. Different times I would hear what sounded like a large creature moving through the water, moving towards the shore as if reacting to my presence as I walked by. Man it scared me, I tell you. And different times I would hear the oddest sound, like: "Aaaaaaaaaaaa" in a back-of-the-throat, raspy kind of way (and no, it isn't like any animal I know of around here (I know what toads, frogs and other critters can sound like.) Anyway, it would come from the woods or bushes, from one side of the road or the other. It would seem to follow me, and quite quickly, and yet keep a distance. One night I went to a little warf at night in this area, and I heard a dog-sized creature swimming through (under) the water of the bridge, exactly under where I stood, like a large fish. Then, from the end of the warf, above the water, I heard it again: "Aaaaaaaaaaa..." I couldn't see anything because it was pitch black, except for some of the water and warf features from miminal moonlight and from a lighthouse some distance away. I ran home.

Never did figure out what that thing was. I've just waited to see if stories of other people began to appear, but so far nothing.

Strange blue ... maybe it was a giant otter ... I don't know if otters make an 'aaaaaaaaaa' noise though. I do know if I heard that noise in the dark, I would most certainly run away like a pansy

The water horse (kelpie) from celtic mythology does suddenly come to mind ... in Wales (where some of my family are from) there is a similiar creature called the Ceffyl Dwr.

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelpie

Don't you hate creatures that make strange noises in the night!

Thanks for the suggestion, but it sounded nothing like a horse (or an otter.) It sounded exactly like a little kid making the "aaaaaa" sound from the back of his throat. Weird, I know.

well the water horse isn't actually a horse, it is a supernatural entity spoken of in Celtic folklore that haunts the rivers and lochs of Scotland and Ireland. Some believe it to be a faerie being and the horse shape that its name derives from is not its true form.

Though it may appear as a horse, or even as a beautiful young human, the kelpie is not a true shapeshifter. Instead it casts an illusion, or glamour, to fool mortal eyes. This illusion can be seen through by various magical means, or by people with the gift of so-called “second sight.” Its true form is a kind of hideous two-legged horse-thing, a twisted parody of human and horse with shaggy midnight hair and wild mane and tail that flow and whirl like rushing black water.

Thanks for the suggestion, appreciated. You might be right then.



This actually feels right, although I never caught any visual glimpse of it at all. But it feels right..

That pic is just plain freaky!

Chaaaarlie..... candy mountain Chaaarlie...



freaky monster

Lots of stuff in the oceans. The oceans are so big, that unknown creatures can hide there for a very long time.

I think Bigfoot hunters make a flawed assumption in their quest for evidence. They search for Bigfoot in vast expanses of the most remote, rugged terrain, assuming that these wilderness areas must be the best places to search, when there is a history of decent sightings in less remote locales like New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.

Monster Quest spent a little bit of time in Whitehall, New York, and the BFRO does have some expeditions in New York, but I bet they might actually find something if more organizations spent more time in places with less wilderness. Less wilderness means less places for Bigfoot to hide. I would think it could translate into a higher likelihood of encountering one.

All of my own personal experiences with Bigfoot point toward a mundane explanation for the beast. I have no reason to believe they are anything more than biological entities, ones no more paranormal or supernatural than bears. However, I do believe there are OTHER things in the woods, things well beyond current scientific understanding.

l1l1th wrote:

well the water horse isn't actually a horse, it is a supernatural entity spoken of in Celtic folklore that haunts the rivers and lochs of Scotland and Ireland. Some believe it to be a faerie being and the horse shape that its name derives from is not its true form.

Though it may appear as a horse, or even as a beautiful young human, the kelpie is not a true shapeshifter. Instead it casts an illusion, or glamour, to fool mortal eyes. This illusion can be seen through by various magical means, or by people with the gift of so-called “second sight.” Its true form is a kind of hideous two-legged horse-thing, a twisted parody of human and horse with shaggy midnight hair and wild mane and tail that flow and whirl like rushing black water.

This definition is certainly true of the supernatural kelpie/water horse of folklore, but cryptozoologists may use a somewhat different definition. There are many accounts of unknown water beasts, often serpentine, possessing horse-like heads. There could be more than one origin of such tales. Such tangled histories could include both supernatural and mundane threads.

I certainly agree with you Richard about how we get conditioned into thinking we have to look for certain things in specific places. I have read reports of sightings of yowies (Australia's equivalent to the Big Foot) taking place in crowded cities! One such report even stated there was a family of yowies who had made themselves a home in an old deserted miner's shack in the middle of a well visited national park that was surrounded by suburbia.

My wife's Bigfoot sighting occurred on a city street. It happened to be in a section of that city containing a large cemetery surrounded by wooded hills along three of it's four borders. The area in question has only a fairly narrow strip of urban or suburban landscape between a major river and said cemetery. Beyond that cemetery lies swampy woodlands and farmland.

I am aware of other sightings not too far from this location, perhaps only ten or fifteen miles away. That's a short jaunt for a Bigfoot, especially one with a taste for McDonalds! Human garbage could be a resource utilized by these creatures, and human garbage means human habitation.

By the way, I saw on one Bigfoot site a claim that an analysis on alleged Yowie hairs showed them to be identical to alleged Sasquatch hairs. Both appear to be from the same type of large, unknown animal. So your Yowie could be a close relative of our Bigfoot (Bubba's Aussie cousins).

Yeah that is pretty ugly, isn't it?


Yeah, you might be right, Richard. I hand't considered a reptilian creature...its noise does bear a resemblance to some large snakes that I remember from the Nature Channel, come to think of it. Hmmmm. Of course, snakes like that aren't supposed to exist around here, but it would be a more 'comfortable' answer than a mythical monster. Dunno..


A bigfoot in a city area, still can't get over that one. He must have been drawn by all the night lights.

If I recall correctly, John Green covered reports of Bigfoot in suburbia in his tome Sasquatch: the Apes Among Us. Unfortunately, most Bigfoot researchers today ignore such reports. If they do even acknowledge them, they put them in the realm of urban legend or the paranormal. Personally, I see no reason to say that the ones in the Pacific Northwest forests are real biological entities of this earthly realm, while ones seen elsewhere (especially in more densely populated areas) are supernatural entities.

Blue - depending on the actual size of what you encountered, might it be a seal (or another pinniped)? We occasionally have seals here in the Hudson River, 150 miles from the ocean.

Larger than a seal, a more exotic explanation could be a sea serpent (which may really be mammalian instead of reptilian - reptiles move side-to-side, most reported sea serpents and lake monsters move up-and-down like mammals).

A mammalian explanation could explain its apparent interest in you - mammals are curious creatures. Perhaps it was just curious about that two-legged thing walking by.

Just throwing out some possibilities.